Marta and her twin brother Nick have always been haunted and fascinated by an ancestral legend that holds that members of their family are doomed to various types of falls. And when their own family collapses in the wake of a revelation and a resulting devastating fight with their Catholic mother, the twins move to Prague, the city in which their "falling curse" began.
Branum is a taut storyteller who reveals and confides with great skill, in a narrative composed of addictive passages rather than conventional chapters ... This hypnotic and philosophical debut considers the act of defenestration as something more profound than an accident or a mere unfortunate end. Through the lens of memory, Branum refracts the layers of truth, tragedy and faith that break a cycle of lives most at home in free fall.
Stylish, simmering ... Branum breaks up her novel into fragments, some only a paragraph long, and each with its own subhead. There’s a diaphanous flow to her storytelling, full of light and air, with darker notes that play off our hard-wired terror of falling, or basophobia ... Branum toggles between present and past, adroitly meting out her plot ... Some sections feel like padding, as though Branum is trying to convince herself (and us) that Defenestrate is more than a short story masquerading as a novel. She flirts with preciosity, particularly in her overbearing use of [Buster] Keaton ... But in a feat of literary archery, Branum’s lyrical prose hits its mark again and again, rich but never overly ripe, delicate but with a tautness that propels the narrative ... And the novel’s spare, ghostly mood recalls Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides ... Evocative passages...stud the novel like diamonds. The story cuts back and forth, brimming with suspense. It’s always a joy to see a writer dig confidently into her gifts, as Branum does in Defenestrate. Her characters may fear falling, but this novel soars.
Shoves, falls, warnings, breaks and superstitions are heavily layered throughout the opening pages of Branum's work, yet the tension and foreboding are tempered by the richness of the characterization ... There is an element of predictability — the notion of falling, for instance, is sure to return — but the suspense continues to build. The quiet suspense works so well that the moments of violence and outrage are somewhat jarring ... Branum confronts existential questions with bold, clean prose that swings between gravity and deflection ... A beautifully structured work about ancestry, siblinghood, vulnerability and fear.
